


Stagnation

by wayward_s



Series: Seijoh Week 2020! [4]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Brief Mentions of Timeskip content, But Mattsun won't admit it, Day 4: Lost, Flash Fic, Fluff, Gen, Introspection, Matsukawa Issei just admit you love Hanamaki Takahiro, Pining, Seijoh Week 2020, Spoilers/Continuation of Haikyuu Chapter 402, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:55:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26251528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wayward_s/pseuds/wayward_s
Summary: Iwaizumi, most notably, thinks they should put a label on it.But that’s coming from the same man who has been enamoured with his best friend for the better part of two decades and hasn’t ever made a move.So Issei takes that opinion and yeets it into the garbage where it belongs.
Relationships: Hanamaki Takahiro/Matsukawa Issei
Series: Seijoh Week 2020! [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1903042
Comments: 6
Kudos: 36
Collections: Seijoh Week 2020





	Stagnation

**Author's Note:**

> vaguely inspired by [yokan by SUPER BEAVER](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnYwwyXPt70)

That same night Argentina knocks Japan out of the running for Olympic Gold, Issei takes Hiro home with him. 

An unconscious response. 

A habit. 

_ Instinct. _

He was just so used to having Hiro around.

And granted, it had been a few years since they actively lived together, but feelings aren’t things that dissipate quickly.

(In Issei’s case, at least. Hiro was a bit harder to read these days, but assumed it was the same.

Why else would he be so willing to be swept away by someone as terrible as Matsukawa Issei?)

So when Issei wakes up the next morning to find Hiro curled up against him in his already too-small bed, he isn’t sure of what to make of the thud that reverberates it the centre of his chest.

There was no reason for Issei to be awake that early - he’d put in for vacation time for the Olympics and meeting up with Oikawa once everything was said and done - but for once he was glad that his routine stuck with him.

But seeing Hiro’s cheek pressed into the muscle of his bicep, seeing the way his bangs were tangled across his forehead, and the soft yellow-white light of the morning sun wash over his unblemished skin was enough to make the early rising worth it. 

And it was worth it every  _ other _ time Hiro made it up from Tokyo, too.

Issei adjusts himself, rolling to lay completely on his side and pulling Hiro closer to his chest. There’s a moment of tension as Hiro’s brows twitch and his nose scrunches from the movement. Issei holds his breath for a beat, waiting to see the familiar brown tones of Hiro’s eyes.

But he stills and settles again, shuffling even closer and pressing his nose into the valley of Issei’s sternum.

(Content? Maybe. 

Hiro was content when he slept in general.)

Issei isn’t entirely sure what  _ this _ is, but it was working at the very least.

And who is he to question something that is fully functional. 

He bends his arm at the elbow, curling his arm around Hiro’s back to lay his hand on his shoulder. The rubbed small circles into the skin, watching as goosebumps formed across the bare flesh of his exposed arm.

Hiro’s breath was even, calm. 

A soft sigh flutters against Issei’s bare chest. 

Issei tightens his hold on him. 

In the silence of the room around them, the brief thought of ‘What if’ flutters through his mind.

Hiro was in between jobs. His rent was almost up for his apartment in Tokyo. He mentioned last night he wanted to move back to Miyagi, but nothing was set in stone.

Issei has a steady job. His own apartment lease was up in a month’s time. He actively missed having someone to talk to other than Yahaba. 

And things with Hiro were -  _ are _ \- easy. They always and he figured they always will be. They’d been friends for such a long time and entangled (as Watari called it) even longer. 

_ What was holding them back from moving forward? _

He couldn’t be sure for Hiro; he was always a bit more slow on the uptake.

But Issei…

He’s not even sure if there’s a guaranteed path forward.

He’s never been the type to have a solid path. And that’s unfortunate, really, especially when he was friends with two of the most driven people he’d ever known. 

But it was the truth. 

And maybe it’s a bit of fear that sits at the root of the problem. Issei had fucked up plenty of things in his twenty-seven years of life. But God forbid he messes up whatever he has with Hanamaki Takahiro.

There’s a hopeful part of him that tells him, constantly, that there’s no way he could fuck it all up when it came to Hiro. Hiro has always been there - supportive, constant - when Issei has needed someone. Distance be damned, life be  _ damned _ . Hiro was there, had always offered up a part of himself for Issei to use and rely on. And no one would do that if there wasn't mutual respect and trust and understanding. That voice whispers a little more indignantly than normal; there’s no way you could mess this up. 

(But that chance, though slim as it may be, is still a  _ chance _ all the same.)

Commitment issues seem like the most obvious answer - as stereotypical and predictable as it is. 

Most of their friends would agree.

Iwaizumi, most notably, thinks they should put a label on it.

But that’s coming from the same man who has been enamoured with his best friend for the better part of two decades and hasn’t ever made a move.

So Issei takes that opinion and yeets it into the garbage where it belongs. 

What even is the point of a label when most of the world would ignore that label anyway? 

Equality was a pipe dream that didn’t exist for a lot of people.

What did a label do when there was the inevitability that one of them (read: Hiro) could find something  _ better _ ?

Their paths were not inextricably tied together in the same way Iwaizumi and Oikawa were. Best friends since birth, teammates and partners for most of their lives, only to become opponents eager to bring out the best challenge for the world to witness.

Yeah, that type of astronomical alignment wasn’t for the likes of someone like him, for someone like Hiro; for two schmucks that couldn’t seem to be rid of each other no matter how hard they tried. 

What was the point of a label when Issei couldn’t even be sure if what he was feeling was anything  _ worth _ labelling?

Issei knew what Iwaizumi was implying with his grumbled complaints. 

It was a matter of love. Of being in love. Of loving Hiro for all that he was, and hoping that Hiro loved him back with the same vigor.

But if he were being honest, Issei wasn’t sure if what he was feeling  _ was _ love.

And maybe, just maybe, that was the downside of his own cynicism. His natural disdain for the romantic and emotional dulled his senses when it came to matters of the heart. And he was certain that however ‘love’ was described by the artists of their time was not at all accurate, and not at all universal. 

‘Besides’, he thinks to himself as he traces the curve of Hiro’s cheek and jaw with the pad of his index finger, ‘we’ve never bothered with any of that?’

Labels were definitive. Restrictive. 

And Hiro liked his freedom. 

(It was one the many things Issei had grown fond of.)

Even before their paths split off, they never bothered moving beyond what was comfortable, what was easy to understand.

Labels came with their own interpretations - from the people who bore them and people who adorned them. And if Issei was having trouble rationalising and defining his own monologue, then how the  _ fuck  _ was he meant to be certain with whatever Hiro’s was-

Issei flinches at the sensation of Hiro’s hand trailing up to rest over his chest, palm flat against the skin before it trails down the length of his torso and rests against the curve of his hip. There’s a lull Hiro’s breathing, all before it returns to his regular pace as his fingers press tight against the flesh beneath them. 

He smiles.

“Sorry.” He whispers, more to himself than the man sleeping beside him. “M’gonna stop thinking, I swear.”

Hiro doesn’t grace him with a response, but his grip relaxes.

And it’s enough to ground Issei in the  _ now _ .

Having Hiro here with him is enough. 

Fuck wherever  _ this _ was meant to go.

Wherever people  _ expected _ them to go. 

They would figure that out when the path started to diverge. 

All Issei cared about was the ‘here’ and ‘now. 

**Author's Note:**

> hnnnng finally at the halfway point, we're doing it reddit! and i haven't fully stooped into any angst territory with these prompts! its a christmas miracle!


End file.
